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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 9, 2012 22:48:03 GMT -5
The way to store a year's worth of food is to store almost all dry goods. You might reasonably store canned goods too but you're certainly not going to get a year's worth. As a child, my very large family ate primarily what we produced and stored ourselves... We stored and ate very few dry goods. Our diet consisted primarily of meat, eggs, milk, fish, garden vegetables, and bread. Hardly any dry-goods. That is because we preserved what we ate and ate what we preserved. Dry-goods are OK for a once-in-a-lifetime emergency food storage, but I think that they would be horrible for eating day-to-day. We raised grain on the farm, but sold it to the mill and bought cleaned wheat from which we made bread, pancakes, cakes, noodles, etc. The vegetables we produced in large quantities for use during the winter were potatoes and carrots which were stored in a root cellar, sweet corn which was stored frozen, onions and winter squash which were stored on a shelf in the house, tomatoes which were stored bottled as sauce, juice, salsa, or whole fruits, and green beans which were stored bottled. We bottled smaller quantities of other things like honey, pickled cucumbers, pickled beets, fruits, juices, jams, and jellies. We stored wild and domestic meat in the freezer. Milk, fish, eggs, and sparrows were used immediately when available. Chickens, and rabbits were stored on-the-hoof, (meaning they were butchered on an ad-hoc as needed basis all year long). We ate a lot of soups and casseroles because they were easy to make with whatever ingredients were on hand. Stir-fry would be another useful cooking technique, but that wasn't in our cultural heritage. It seems to me that storing real food doesn't take up very much space. To store enough pint bottles to open a bottle every day for a year only takes 12 cubic feet: which is less than occupied by a typical bathroom vanity. It only takes 5 cubic feet to store enough potatoes for a pound of potatoes every day for 8 months, which is about the useful storage life of potatoes. All of our stored food fit in the closet under a stairway: It was lined with floor to ceiling shelves on one wall, and the potato root cellar was under the floor. But, I was raised by a family that traditionally stored all our own food, in a village of similar families, among a people who valued such things, so raising and storing most of our own food was not unusual or out-of-the-ordinary. My local grocery stores have canned-goods-sales every fall in which they sell them by the case for the best prices of the year. It's super easy to afford a year's worth of tomato sauce, or canned vegetables: And a great way to pay today's prices for foods that I will eat in a year. [But I gotta eat what I buy, I can't leave it on the shelf for decades like I could with dry-goods.] I am also expecting a long-decline with occasional instabilities... |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Oct 10, 2012 10:19:37 GMT -5
I also think that stored dry goods are over-emphasized, although they have a place. If I use the LDS food storage calculator I'm supposed to have 450 lbs of wheat stored, plus an additional 450 lbs of other grain products. But what about the entire room I have basically filled with winter squash? Or all the potatoes in the basement? Or all the winter wheat that is in the 4th leaf stage out in the field?
I'm supposed to have 224 pounds of dried and canned milk, but I have a cow. I'd rather have a barn full of hay and a cow than 224 lbs of highly processed "milk" of very questionable nutritional quality.
Dry good storage is a decent buffer system but it is only a short-term crutch. Traditional food storage strategies relied much less on dry storage and much more on storage of live food- on the hoof, in the root cellar, fermented in the crock. That kind of thing takes a lot more skill and time vs having a bunch of wheat packed in mylar and buckets. But long term its the only way to go. We need to be creating diverse resilient food systems.
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Post by synergy on Oct 10, 2012 16:30:12 GMT -5
A wonderful benefit to the pantry system of having substantial amounts of stored food when you live in a little more rural circumstance is less driving to the store, when you need an ingrediant (or an extra case of toilet paper, soap , etc. ) it is such a blessing to have it in the pantry saving time and fuel. I am planning to triple my pantry size this winter, though it will perhaps take longer to fill. In one year I have gone from 6 canning jars to having over 400 plus a small running stock of other prepared ingrediants on hand. I am also purchasing 6 metal barrels to fill with grain stocks I can prepare for my family or feed to the animals to keep a slightly better stock.
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Post by raymondo on Oct 10, 2012 16:37:24 GMT -5
Putting up food is part of how I live. I make pickles and ferments, I grow beans for winter use, I freeze some things but not many and I dry a few things but again, not many. I do it it not as a preparation but because it's what I eat, my daily fare.
My sister, by comparison, stores virtually nothing except the things she and her family normally eat which means some frozen things and some goods in cans. She would have to change her daily fare in order to move to storage mode. That must be the case for a lot of people, that their eating habits don't lend themselves to storage.
I should also say that I live in a rural setting on a 3/4 acre block and grow some of my food and my sister lives in a city on a tiny block and grows a few ornamentals.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Oct 10, 2012 21:30:21 GMT -5
When the shit hits the fan I want to be sheltered in or near a toilet paper factory.
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Post by steev on Oct 10, 2012 21:45:31 GMT -5
Only needed if you eat regular.
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Post by templeton on Oct 11, 2012 3:23:44 GMT -5
On a side note, I recall hearing on the '2 Greedy Italians' that pasta was originally seen as a way of storing food for sieges - layers of dry lasagne could be easily stacked and stored for long periods (the chefs dismissed the recent trend to 'fresh pasta' as anachronistic, and not true to the traditional way of consuming pasta - but I will interested to hear from those with better knowledge than me of italian cuisine).
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Post by circumspice on Oct 11, 2012 4:19:17 GMT -5
When the shit hits the fan I want to be sheltered in or near a toilet paper factory.  |
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Post by garnetmoth on Oct 11, 2012 7:28:52 GMT -5
For toilet paper, ive gone to fabric for #1. it doesnt solve the whole equation, but puts a serious slow down to the consumption.
a soak and a heavy wash in the laundry- havent had any issues.
"used" goes in a fabric-lined bucket until its full, then tied up and put in a hamper for only those. Ive got 3 bags worth of wipeys, and they all fit in one wash load.
Grape leaves are big and tough, ive been eyeing some clary sage leaves, theyre huge and textured....
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Post by bunkie on Oct 11, 2012 11:36:31 GMT -5
on the drying of food, i find myself doing more of this. dried peas, beans, carrots, corn, broccoli, etc... can easiily be thrown in a pot of soup fofr nourishment and take less space than cans....tho i do do both, and freeze.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Oct 11, 2012 14:29:42 GMT -5
DRYING FOOD: Yes, dried is best in my opinion because drying uses less energy (as opposed to freezing, canning maybe not), requires fewer tools, less labor, less space. It's an older method of storage so more experience. After drying, fermented. Consider, stuff like bacon, hams, cheeses, don't really NEED refridgeration. It does better WITH refridgeration, but if you don't have it, you don't have it. Cool storage can be achieved with underground storage.
THE OTHER TOPIC: I hear ya Kelly girl.... but..... ::grimace:: I think Circumspice & I will bring TP when we come visit you! ;o) I WOULD be cool with a bidet!
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Post by raymondo on Oct 24, 2012 5:55:51 GMT -5
For toilet paper, ive gone to fabric for #1. it doesnt solve the whole equation, but puts a serious slow down to the consumption. a soak and a heavy wash in the laundry- havent had any issues. "used" goes in a fabric-lined bucket until its full, then tied up and put in a hamper for only those. Ive got 3 bags worth of wipeys, and they all fit in one wash load. Grape leaves are big and tough, ive been eyeing some clary sage leaves, theyre huge and textured.... is a possibility. Grows along roadsides here. |
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Post by MikeH on Oct 24, 2012 9:39:03 GMT -5
Also Stachys byzantina. And you could plant it along the path to the outdoor facility so that on moonlit nights you'd know where the path was. |
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Post by steev on Oct 24, 2012 12:45:46 GMT -5
Verbascum thapsis is what grows on my farm for "Farmin' Charmin".
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Post by richardw on Oct 24, 2012 12:50:23 GMT -5
Verbascum thapsus grows wild around here as well
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